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Comment Moderation Is A Team Effort

High class universities, such as Eton, Harvard, and Yale, have a unique and intriguing sport that's enjoyed by both participants and spectators - team rowing.

The participants work together, and propel their oar driven boats through the water at astounding speeds, by synchronising their oar movements.

In team rowing, the team manager, or coxswain, is an essential participant. The coxswain does no rowing, but still contributes to the success of the team, by keeping the rowing synchronised. Without synchronisation, a team is useless. Team members not rowing - or worse, rowing out of step - slow the boat.

The new comment moderation system is designed around the principles of team rowing.
The collaborative, heuristic filters were designed to require everybody's input, in identifying spam comments.

People who don't want to participate are like team rowers who decide to not row - they contribute only dead weight. When they insist that Blogger should make the new filters optional, they are like those who would row out of step - and they damage the filters for everybody.

Blogger would have another project to do, which would take them away from other, more needed activities.

Your input, identifying your spam messages, would be unavailable. Other bloggers have to flag more spam messages, without your input.

With an additional control, other bloggers will have another setting to misuse. Other bloggers have to flag still more spam messages, without the input from folks who would select the new setting, unwittingly.

Other bloggers, listening to the dissident team members, are less inclined to moderate in synchronisation also.

Spammers succeed in getting more spam comments published, and see more financial benefits. This encourages them to continue their activities.

As bloggers, we all need to pull together, and synchronise our efforts. Only if we all pull together, will spammers be stopped from abusing our blogs.

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